The Voice of Luke
by SerraShiMaco
Summary: A short Luke/Ethan-One-shot. Contains HoO Characters. This was a christmas gift for my best friend. Decided to translate it to english. Have fun. Disclaimer: I don't own PJO/HoO or the Characters. All thanks to Rick Riordan.


Ethan fell.

He saw the golden glow of the great Olympus who was fading away slowly, like his whole being.

After all, he made a change, didn't he?

But he was so certain, to take revenge on the gods...

But in the moment of truth he decided to act against all this, against Kronos... against Luke.

He hoped, that his sacrifice would not be for nothing.

For sure he had reach his goal by what he did... right? To make a change in this world.

Ethan fell through the cloud cover, an icy wind was blowing around his ears and head but he didn't really noticed this anymore.

"Luke...", was the last word he managed to say. Then his eyes shut down and everything went black.

Ethan pitched his eyes open and looked around.

He was in a room that looked like an lobby of a hotel.

It was full, but through all these people he recognized the one who was so important to him.

A young man entered the room.

Ethan saw the blond hair, these beautiful blue eyes and this scar, which made him even more simpatico.

At first he was glad to see him but than he realized what this meant.

Luke was dead.

Ethan gasped and rushed toward him.

"Luke!", he cried and the boy turned around.

"Ethan!", he seemed to be surprised too, Ethan heard it in his voice.

Gently he took his arms around him and looked at him worried.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!", he said and hold him for a moment.

Ethan shook his head.

"It's okay... but what are you doing here?", he asked while he was looking up to him.

"After I saw you falling...", he stopped for a while.

"Then I realized... that I couldn't let him controlling me anymore... and so he couldn't, I..."  
Luke didn't need to finish. Ethan could imagine what he had done.

He would probably have done the same, but maybe because he was Japanese and so he had another point of view towards these things.

Fortunately they had some drachma with them so they could use the ferry to cross the river.

But their luck expired when they both arrived at the justice of death.

Nervously they entered the room and looked up to the judges.

"Ethan Nakamura... Luke Castellan...", a deep voice echoed through the building.

First he took a step aside, but then he went forward with a stern glance.

"You both...", said the judge "brought a big disaster to this world... You helped Kronos to rise... Many people and demigods died because of you..."

Ethan clenched his hands to fist.

"But in the end... you both decided to change sides... You both offered a big sacrifice to defeat Kronos...", he summarized the situation.

Another judge rose.

"I think, that balanced oneself... You both will go to the fields of Asphodel."  
Ethan looked up to the judges.

"No!", he protested. Quick he turned his face to Luke, who was looking at him inquiring.

Ethan shook his head slightly and turned toward the judges.

"It's right", he started. "Luke offered this war to start but... he didn't did this for evils sake. He wanted to help, to avert all these unlucky fates of the demigods... He wanted, that something changed!", he said certain.

"Send him to the fields of Asphodel wouldn't be fair. He is a hero! He belongs to the Elysium!"

The judges took a quick look at each other and then looked down to Ethan. Before they could say something the young demigod went forward talking.

"As a child of Nemesis I know... that there can't be good without bad... no luck without bad luck..."

He paused for a while, then he took a deep breath.

Ethan gave Luke a gentle smile, then he looked again to the judges and looked concern.

"Please... Allow Luke to enter the Elysium...", he said calmly.

"Of course, I will absorb the bad luck... restore the balance and go to the fields of punishment for this sake..."

Luke widened his eyes.

"What?", he asked stunned and shook his head.

"You can't do this!", but the judges seemed agreed.

"Good!", the one said out loud.

"Luke Castellan!", it echoed through the halls.

"Your entry to the Elysium will be allowed... And now, go!"

Then a man entered the door. He went to Luke and led him out of the room.

It seemed that he want to protest, but apparently he knew that this will have no effect.

He looked into Ethans eye for a last time.

Ethan showed a last weak smile while Luke went through the door.

He saw his beautiful blue eyes for a last time.

Never before Ethan had hear so many screams.

Slowly he entered the square. He saw people, demigods they were uncountable and they all suffered from endless pain.

Ethan didn't know, why they ended up here, what they did wrong... and immediately he asked himself if there was another soul out there, which was here for the same reason he was.

The man who brought him here left and another one went towards him.

He was tall, his pitch black hair lay down his shoulders and let his pale skin look even more pale.

His eyes were so deep and toxic green like Ethan had never seen before.

He wore a black robe, hanging in shreds around his body and it dragged over the ground.

Ethan could hear the sound of chains. With the jingle sound of chains in his ears Ethan searched for the cause and finally saw the chains, held from a boy who seemed to be in his age. who was walking besides the man.

He had tousled brown hair and his eyes had the same penetrative green like the man.

He put a crocked smile on his face what didn't make him look less sinister.

The only thing that didn't matched up to his appearance was the purple shirt he was wearing, with the golden letters SPQR in a laurel wreath on it.

"My name is Orcus... I'm the god of punishment...", the man said and looked down to Ethan. "Not many people are here for the reason you are... Ethan Nakamura."  
His voice sounded so could and harsh, only by this Ethan felt like he was freezing.

"You may think it was noble... kind, obliging... to shoulder the sins from another...", he said calmly.

"But it's foolish... and silly... If not even egoistic..."  
"Egoistic?", Ethan repeated unbelieving.

He came to this place for Luke to be fine... why should this be egoistic?  
"For sure", the boy said and took a step towards Ethan.

"What do you think will Luke feel now... You're sitting here because of him, right?"

It seemed that Ethan couldn't breath anymore.

He hadn't enough will or strength to resist that the boy took him on chains.

"You just put another sin on your shoulders, Ethan Nakamura...", the man said with a calm voice.

He gave the boy a stern look, like he was saying that it was the boys charge to execute Ethans punishment. "Bryce... He is yours...", he said before he left the fields.

Ethan looked toward the ground and saw that his hands were shackled oneself to each other.

He was here... because he wanted to help Luke.

At least one time he wanted to be the one, who helped him and not the other way around.

But this boy, Bryce, was probably right.

Luke was in Elysium now... but what will he think? How must he feel, knowing, that Ethan was captured here because of him?  
"But don't be afraid", the boy said and laughed.

"No matter how many sins you will shoulder... it wont erase the things Luke did...", he went further with a smile on his lips.

Ethan couldn't say if it was a friendly smile...barely it seemed fair-minded.

"Your sacrifice was for nothing... Luke will never go to the Elysium just because you are sitting here... But in the fields of Asphodel it shall be nice too, at least that's what I heard", he laughed.

Ethan looked at him unbelieving. What did he said?

Was this true? Or did this boy just want to make him scared?

Maybe this was his punishment? To believe his sacrifice was for nothing?

"And with a bit of luck you'll meet him here!"  
Ethan shook his head.

"No!", he protested with a weak voice.

That couldn't be true!

Suddenly the boy rose Ethans head. Irritated he looked at him. This situation already made him so numb, that he didn't noticed at all, what the boy had prepared.

Over him there hang some limbs and all were soaked in some kind of liquid.

Drops were forming and seemed close to fall down.

Bryce pushed Ethans face towards the limps and with two fingers he forced him to open his left eye, Ethan couldn't resist anyway.

He was in chains, his body was numb and freezing cold.

Then he saw one drop falling and suddenly everything went black.

Pain crossed all over his body and he heard a quite fizzling. Was that acid?  
Ethan wondered about how clear his thoughts were, considering to the fact that he loosed an eye...

But maybe this was just the force of habit.

The boy desisted from him and then the next drop fell.

A deep pain. He winced slightly.

How long could he bear this?

Ethan tried to take a deep breath but a scream attracted his attention.

That was Lukes voice.

Where did it came from? Was he really here? Did he just imagine this? He didn't knew.

He just heard this endless pain in Lukes voice. But as the next drop fell everything seemed to dissolve in light.

Ethan didn't knew where he was, didn't knew who he was or what he was. He didn't knew anything.

And then he heard a scream.

Who was screaming there? This voice seemed to be familiar but one moment later the notion faded away and a drop of some kind of water was running over his forehead.

Ethan cringed when he felt the acid on his body again.

He didn't knew what was worse... the pain, the sound of this voice... or to forget everything, who he was and why he was here, every three seconds.

The scream echoed into Ethans head, it was everything that remembered him of his life... and clung him to it, even if these memories faded away quickly.

Sometimes he had enough time to think about a name, about the name Luke.

But it disappeared even faster than it came, like the scream he could hear after a few seconds again and again.

Ethan can't say how long he was sitting here, already... he doesn't remember.

But if he is supposed to spend his eternity like this, he sure is glad, because he could at least hear, even though as a scream, Lukes voice.


End file.
